


It’s sharp!

by Genderhawk



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21997735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Genderhawk/pseuds/Genderhawk
Summary: Kiri is having a hard time adjusting to the life of a civilian after getting a taste of the life of an adventurer.   A mysterious green eyed figure in a cloak that invokes a cloak she can remember offers to help her get stronger.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2019





	It’s sharp!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SonjaJade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonjaJade/gifts).



> This fic does touch on the hard parts of dealing with the things that Kiri has seen and been through although the point of the fic isn't pure angst and I found it rather cute all in all... Be careful!

"Welcome to the mighty nein" The voice that the kenku mimicked was joyful but Kiri had shoulders that drooped and a forlorn look in her eyes. The dagger she still kept was gripped tightly in her hand and she slashed again at the tree that bore several deep slashes, new and old, through its bark.

Eventually Kiri's adoptive mother came for her again. The little girl wasn't hard to find between the fact that she was mimicking every curse and threat she'd ever heard and the knowledge that, whenever Kiri was away from home and alone, she could always be found training with the dagger that the gnomish family couldn't get her to abandon.

As the gnome woman climbed the gentle slope she was careful to make noise with every step, the scab on her cheek from the only time she had startled Kiri out of her "training" still needed time to heal. She was a handful but she was loved already.

"Dinner time Kiri!" Kiri turn jumped around still brandishing her blade.

"Go fuck yourself!" Called Kiri happily and, as she noticed the reprimand on her caretakers face added "I am very sweet!" The gnome woman laughed and shook her head before extending a hand to take her newest and strangest child home for the evening.

***

The dinner is quite tasty and as calm an affair as it can be in a household filled with children, that happens to be located in the party capital of the Dwendalian Empire… Kiri only brandishes her blade (the one that has been banned from the table) at one sudden noise and only one argument between Schuster children broke out. 

***

While Kiri's siblings were asleep, Kiri stood watch. She did her rounds, looking through each window and under every door on their small home. So far it had been a quiet night, no sign of trouble or monsters.. No bad guys at all… Ok so it wasn’t quiet, exactly, the noise of the streets in Hupperduke were as loud as ever but they weren't the thing to catch Kiri's eye--there was a flash of a familiar green cloak rounding the corner into an alley too dark for Kiri to see.

Grabbing her dagger from her storage chest, Kiri snuck outside to follow. As she entered the alley, blade extended in front of her, she watched as the green that she chased turned another corner. This went on until the young kenku was nearly winded and, when she looked up at her surroundings, she saw nothing she had ever seen before.

When a rustle of fabric sounded behind her, Kiri jumped around and charged as she let loose a curse in mimicked infernal.

"Calm now child…" the voice comes from the barely visible mouth of a tall figure wearing a cloak that mirrors Jester's "put the knife down, that's no way to welcome a friend of the mighty nein" The figure chuckled as the small but ferocious bundle of feathers skids to a stop with her beak open in shock. 

“Careful, it’s sharp!” is Kiri’s reply as she lowered, not dropping, the blade. Her beak clacks shut when the figure kneels down to meet her eyes and address her without forcing her to crane her neck.

“You’ve lived a big life for someone so small… I could help make your future even bigger you know, as I’ve done for Jester...” Kiri’s feathers fluff with pride.

“I killed people” is the answer that the kenku gives in the brief pause.

The figure nods once with a knowing smile “I was watching you in that swamp, and every day since, and I want to help you get stronger.” 

The dagger comes up again as Kiri takes a few quick slashes at the air between them. “It’s sharp!” she says with a firm nod before lowering the blade completely.

The pair move into an alley and, although a few people look their way nobody seems to notice a bird the size of a small child being taught magic by a figure who has angles and edges that are just a little too sharp to be human and a little too blurred to belong to this plane entirely.

The first light of the sunrise finds Kiri asleep with a sketchbook under her cheek. Three of the first four pages that she drew on are filled with pictures of her friends and rescuers. The first page however holds a drawing of an archway with a winding path leading to it. Maybe, when she’s a little older, she’ll go back and add a dick…

**Author's Note:**

> Kiri isn't a cleric of The Traveler, yet. But that does seem to be where things are going doesn't it...
> 
> Kudos and comments keep my creativity coursing consistently!


End file.
